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ESA Conducts Mars Terraforming Experiments On ISS
geegel writes "Space is a hostile environment for living things, but small organisms on the Expose-E experiment unit outside Europe's Columbus ISS laboratory module have resisted the solar UV radiation, cosmic rays, vacuum and varying temperatures for 18 months. A certain lichen seems to be particularly happy in open space."
I, for one, welcome our Mars-terraforming lichen overlords.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Then come back to earth and take us over. Underworld: Rise of the Lichen. Gonna net to get some space reindeer to save us.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I guess you could say that fungus was lichen space. *crickets*
Imagine it! A dyson sphere of kudzu!!!
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Why go to venus when we can simply terraform earth to have a venus-like atmosphere? We're already well on our way! Mars is a much better place to escape to... I mean, investigate.
Men are running the program - we just want to go home! We're from Mars, ya know?
And now, thanks to the ISS, we'll have both topping for our pizza and athlete's foot when we get there.
I'd like to see them just seed Mars with the lichen now. If it turns out to be problematic, it isn't like it is our own planet (or like it even has life to speak of that we need be concerned about). Put some kudzu cells in the lichen and maybe we can even have Mars go all greenfly on us and then we can spend more on spaceflight in order to be able to flee the galaxy consuming super-lichen
Obama cancelled NASA.
I don't think there's much point to trying to deal with Venus as it is, so the excess atmosphere has got to go.
The solution is obvious, the atmosphere that is in excess on Venus should be moved to Mars.
Then both problems are elegantly solved at once.
I'll leave the trivial implementation details to you.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
The real goal of this research is to understand the limits to life in extreme environments.
Next test coming up: kittens and puppies. How well do they do in a vaccuum?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Pardon the Star Trek analogy here, but wouldn't that be like flinging water balloons into a dry riverbed?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
What, we hadn't figured that out yet by the time ISS construction started?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz